Not all heroes wear capes, they wear scrubs too. The career I plan to pursue is a nurse practitioner. A nurse practitioner diagnoses and treats illnesses, independently or as part of a healthcare team, such as hospital. Their focus is disease prevention towards their patients and everyone. Nurse practitioners may order, perform, or interpret diagnostic tests such as lab work and X-rays, they may also prescribe medication. This career did not come from nowhere, it began in 1965. "Loretta Ford and Henry Silver, a nurse and a physician, created the first training program for nurse practitioners. In 1970s, they documented that they increased the availability of primary care services" (O'Brien). I chose this career because nursing has always been …show more content…
The diagnoses include illnesses, infections, and injuries. To figure out the disease, nurse practitioners need to have the appropriate education. The education needed is a Masters, Doctoral, and First Professional degree. The skills needed are active learning, active listening, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and social perceptiveness. They need to be able to problem solve, give full attention to the patients, use logic to identify problems, understand paragraphs in documents, such as in test results, and to be aware of other reactions. Before considering if this career will be great, high school subjects matter. According to Nurse Practitioner Schools, some high school subjects need to be excelled such as anatomy, psychology, chemistry, biology, and statistics. References matter, most importantly from supervisors, professors, mentors, and even from volunteering at a local hospital. Before becoming a nurse practitioner, a NCLEX-RN needs to be accomplished. NCLEX-RN stands for, National Council Licensure Examination for Registered nurse and must be completed by RNs as well. After that is accomplished, some related college majors can be pursued such as, adult health and family practice, which is part of the nurse/nursing …show more content…
According to PayScale, nurse practitioners typically work with physicians at the start of their job. The doctor diagnoses the condition of the patient and the NP then treats the patient. As stated in Explore Health Careers, working conditions vary from facility and areas. Such as working in clinics, office practices, and hospitals in rural and urban areas. Working schedules often include the weekends, holidays, and on-call after hours but this may vary because many nurse practitioners own their private facility. Nurse practitioner's hours are prolonged compared to any other job. As mentioned in Nurse Theory, the hours worked in a hospital are ten, twelve, and even twenty-four hour shifts and eight hours in a clinic. Vacation time is also known as paid time off, explained by NP Now. Paid time can be up to five weeks in most healthcare groups. Although it depends by your experience, someone who worked one year may only have nine days off and someone who has worked for fifteen years may have nineteen days off, per year. The national median salary is $100,910 and it's worth it due to the enormous amount of emotional stress. "Nurse practitioners experience high levels of stress" (Malone), the stress keeps rising because NPs stress when they cannot treat or save a patient. Nurse practitioners work with physicians, registered nurses, receptionists, and other medical staff if they are in a hospital